Rivalry Week occurs near the end of the college basketball season where two rivals play one another; the most well-known college basketball rivalry is that between North Carolina and Duke. USF has two rivals – Santa Clara and St. Mary’s. However, these cannot be seen as rivalries. A rivalry is supposed to be an intense competition between athletic teams or their athletes. Rivalry games spark a passion in the athletes, coaches and fans. By definition, the rivalry between USF and Santa Clara is not typical since there is no passion in both the teams and the fans as there once was.
The rivalry USF has with Santa Clara and St. Mary’s is very lopsided. In the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 seasons, the basketball programs of St. Mary’s and Santa Clara have been performing well (finishing 42-22 and 36-26, respectfully), whereas USF’s basketball program has not been doing well (23-39 in the same time period). On the other side of the spectrum, Duke and North Carolina are two of the top college basketball programs in the country. Since Duke and North Carolina are both in the top ten in the rankings, it adds excitement in the rivalry especially since the schools play each other twice during the season. USF’s rivalries are not genuine due to the lopsidedness of the quality of the basketball programs.
Fan support for the basketball program also supports the idea for a lack of a true rivalry. Students should take advantage of the fact that they can get into games for free unlike at other schools, such as Duke and Texas A&M, where getting into games is a competitive thing. According to the Duke Athletics website, more than 1,200 students have to wait to see if they are able to get a ticket to a Duke basketball game. At Texas A&M University there is a lottery system for the games; students get a number and if your number gets picked, then you get to go to the game. Students should take advantage of our student section, Los Locos. The Cameron Crazies (the Duke student section, which consists of undergraduate and graduate students) are very dedicated to Duke basketball. The Cameron Crazies help the Duke basketball team, as should Los Locos do to help the USF basketball team. Since not a lot of students come out to support the USF basketball team via Los Locos, USF’s rivalry with Santa Clara and St. Mary’s cannot be seen as a true rivalry.
USF’s rivalries with Santa Clara and St. Mary’s are not true rivalries. USF’s rivalries exist due to the fact that all three colleges are located in the Bay Area along with the fact that they are Catholic-affiliated colleges (USF and Santa Clara being Jesuit colleges and St. Mary’s being a Christian Brothers college). The rivalries between Santa Clara and St. Mary’s can be improved if their basketball programs get better and if there were more student fan support. The rivalries can be revived if USF’s basketball program gets better, which will not be happening any time soon.
“The Cameron Crazies help the Duke basketball team, as should Los Locos do to help the USF basketball team.” I hope you are not an English major. I know several 10 year olds who could have written that article better. Does someone proofread this before it gets published? I’m serious.
I have seome questions. Do you sit in the student section? Are you a member of Los Locos? What do you personally do to cheer on your fellow students? I have seen several articles by USF students complaining about lack of student spirit. Stop writing about it and get involved.
Actually, I believe the writer is a member of Los Locos.
In my article, I was trying to say that USF’s rivalries aren’t like that of UNC-Duke and I wasn’t trying to focus on lack of school spirit. I do participate in Los Locos and I do go to games to support the team. Last year, I’ve written about how students should go and support the team. It’s not my fault there is no school spirit here. I’m not an English major, I do proofread my stuff and sometimes I don’t catch grammatical mistakes. Once I send my articles to the editor, I figure that they would catch mistakes as well. I write for fun and I wanted to point out the lack of rivalry out to the USF community so students can go support the team. Instead of critiquing about how you don’t like my writing, why don’t you go show some school spirit.
I am an alum. I give money to USF and I have given money to Los Locos (by the way, why does the Los Locos President keep quitting in the middle of the season?).
I have been to countless SCU-USF games (there have been over 300 I believe). I am there every game. Stop writing about the problem of student apathy and get your classmates to the games.
Of course USF-SCU is not like UNC-DUKE. How many rivalries are?
This year, the president of Los Locos quit because she is really busy with school and has a job. Trying to get students to get to go the games is harder than it sounds. I have tried to get students to the game but they don’t go because, let’s be honest, the team isn’t that good. I know a lot of students who don’t like the game. Writing about student apathy is different than trying to get students going to the game. I have only written about student apathy once and student apathy is not the focus of this article. I was only using Duke-UNC to help me write this article. As an alum, you could help the athletics department with promoting games instead of having the students doing all the promotions for the games.
Let’s clear up a few things first “Why does the LL president keep quitting mid season?” Just the most recent one did that, I should know 😉 I understand where Lily was coming from, and I truly hope a group of motivated students with some time to spare will pick up the leadership needed!
Francesca,
I think it’s great you are involved in some way with Los Locos, and do go to games. I appreciate the fact that you call out the students to show up to games and take advantage of what they have. The only thing I take issue with in your article is this…
Just because our team is not the best right now, is NOT a good reason to not support them. Students can enjoy the game win or lose, and like you said can make a BIG impact on the final result. A good student section is said to be worth a handful of points every game. No doubt about it that a better team, will help with turn out. How do you think Duke gets all their students interested? Winning of course! USF students, be PROUD of your school and team no matter what, and go have fun at the game because you can. Pre-party, party, or after party. It’s a good time if you really get into it.
Secondly, in regards to rivalries, you are comparing apples and oranges. Duke and UNC are much larger universities and are about 10 miles down the road. USF and SCU/SMC are much smaller and a fairly reasonable distance apart. Next, you have to understand that in reality SCU’s program is not THAT much better than USF’s. Both schools have not made it to the NCAA tournament in awhile, and are currently both struggling. USF actually had the most recent tournament birth I believe, going to the NIT a few years back. SMC has done some great things with their program and we must give them credit for that, however mostly very recent upgrades.
With that being said, a rivalry does not stem from win’s and losses. If UNC beat Duke 99 out of 100 times, I assure you those Duke fans would hate UNC even more. The rival is because there is a long tradition, there is bad blood, and just a general distaste for that other school. We MUST continue to promote this with our student body, SCU is your Rival. We ARE better than them, and we should always do everything we can to show them we are #1 in the bay area.
Keep promoting fan involvement, it’s great!
GO DONS! VIVA LOS LOCOS!